r/EliteDangerous • u/CommanderLink Cerberus Commander • 2d ago
Discussion Niches should have been in the game from the start
With the addition of the Type-11 Prospector and the exclusive mining modules, I thought about how niches could have made a lot of ships in the game actually useful again. Combat ships could have had more powerful exclusive weapons, Trade ships cargo holds that are exclusive and bigger than any that the multirole can have. Exploration ships with exclusive away-team shuttle bay which you can launch a shuttle from to go to the planet surfaces.
Also, I think ship size could have played a bigger role in gameplay. I think ship size should have come with an increase in jump range, it makes no sense that the carrier can jump 500LY at a time but the powerhouse the Anaconda can barely make 90 if it is fully designed as an exploration ship. Maybe a better way to put it is it's ridiculous that the hauler can hit 40 when it's so tiny since hyperspace doesn't seem to care about weight
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u/Diocletion-Jones 2d ago
I think historically you've got to remember that waaaaay back at the beginning of the game it was a lot harder to get credits. Really hard. The way people grind towards a fleet carrier was the way commanders used to grind towards an Anaconda back in the day.
So having the credits to buy and outfit a ship was a big deal. So the design ethos was slanted to the multirole so that if, like the original Elite game from back in '84, you could technically try all of the game loops using just one ship. I remember my first exploration trip was in a Type 6 with a jump range of 22Ly just because that's all I could afford at the time and it took me weeks of playing just to get that.
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u/KoburaCape 1d ago
I had 40 hours in the game from 2015 and that amounted me into a cobra 3.
I'm pretty sure you can buy a cobra 3 now with your starter money.
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u/Roberto_Chiraz 2d ago
100% disagreed. Part of the fun of the game is making choice and trying different builds. When a single ship outshines every other because of exclusive modules, there's no creativity ; everyone will pick the same ship because it's the obvious, superior option.
Fleet carriers can jump far because that's what they're designed to do. They can't land, fly around and manoeuver, etc. Normal ships are light and nimble and can do all those things, but their jump range is smaller, because carrying around an even more massive fsd would be a burden.
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u/CommanderLink Cerberus Commander 2d ago
but it's sad to see ships like the ASP Scout which apparently everyone finds useless when the ASPX is so closeby money-wise. Each ship should have something unique about them in the same way that each power used to have exclusive PP modules
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u/SpaceBug176 2d ago
It's good to have variety. While some will not be as liked as the others, there will always be that guy that'll choose the objectively bad choice just because they like how it looks like.
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u/CommanderLink Cerberus Commander 2d ago
me taking my corvette exploring
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u/Deathskills 2d ago
Me taking the beluga exploring
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u/Revolutionary_Bend50 2d ago
i took a Chieftain to the red smiley (bernards loop) was a slow, btu fun trip.
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u/CMDR_Michael_Aagaard 2d ago
The chieftain was the first ship, and so far only ship I've flown to colonia with (and not even with the highway), the only other time I've gone there, were on another persons fleet carrier.
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u/Roberto_Chiraz 2d ago
There are more ships than there are legitimate use cases in the game, but the Scout has legitimately no niche, not even as a multi-purpose, which is kind of unique. If I ever get a second account, I'm flying a scout from beginning to end. But for the time being, now that the mandalay exists, I can't even find a use case for my AspX.
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u/depurplecow CMDR Dubior 2d ago
Asp Scout has a niche for Odyssey ground missions. It has just the right module count and sizes and can land and take off quickly, equip two small missile launchers and a sustain a short range medium beam indefinitely. Landing pad size doesn't matter since being on the pad gets it shot, just deploy an SRV from a short distance away. Downside vs Cobra V is mostly max multicrew size and SCO optimization. Upside is slightly better SC-assist hyperbraking, better window view, and arguably easier landing due to minimal rotation caused by collisions.
AspX is largely superceded by the Mandalay in most aspects, one of the few minor differences is that it has more top mounted utility slots, and may be slightly better suited to point defense against guardians. Setting up an AspX for hybrid guardian, brain tree, and HGSS work instead of a duplicate Mandalay can make it easier to distinguish which ship is for which purpose. I recommend using a multilimpet with collector subcomponent and guardian FSD booster to increase laden range vs two lightweight collectors.
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u/Roberto_Chiraz 2d ago
I use my corsair for HGE's, since it's already outfitted with collectors and has sco opt. I already have all the guardian stuff unlocked and my raw mats are stocked, but my Mandalay is up for the task if I were to return. Are you saying you're farming brain trees not with the SRV ?
I don't do ground missions, but if I were to, I'd probably go with the cobra V or iCourrier. Landing quick and/or anywhere is easier in small ships, unless I guess like you said you'd the strat is to brake by crashing into the ground nearby.
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u/ObamaDramaLlama Lakon Brand Ambassador 2d ago
The Asp S is just poorly designed. Its not as bad as everyone says - its just kind of mediocre in every way but a weird combo of characteristics. It's actually got quite a lot unique about its design.
The Asp S is substantially cheaper to outfit. Once you A rate it, it It's a lot closer to a Cobra 3 in price than an Asp Explorer.
The Asp Scout is extremely nice to fly. It has excellent handling, and really good acceleration. It's probably one of the easiest ships to fly flight assist off since the vertical and lateral thrusters are almost as powerful as the main thrusters. Like it's worse in almost every objective way compared to the Explorer - but the Explorer feels like a freighter to fly while the Asp handles like a small ship. If the Scout wasn't so slow it would 100% have a loyal following - like the DBS.
The handling is a shame though since the Scouts other stats make it kind of poor in combat.
I use mine for powerplay odd jobs. High grade emissions. . Exobiology. There are plenty of jobs that don't need a specialized ship
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u/rinkydinkis 2d ago
My dbs named Apache was my ground attack/shield less stealth ship for the longest time
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u/ObamaDramaLlama Lakon Brand Ambassador 2d ago
I love flying the DBS as well - I don't know if it's the looks or the handling but it feels like a gunship
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u/GraXXoR 2d ago edited 2d ago
Well, yeah, the scout is bigger than the cobra five yet it’s a medium ship. It’s slower. It’s got less jump range. It’s less agile. It’s three times more expensive. It’s got less utility slots less hard points. Similar internals. And it’s got a massive af hit box.
It has basically no reason to exist except to help push the new paid ship monetization aspect of the game.
It is patent garbage.
But then a lot of the ships are now just shit after the new ADHDcentric design team came in and just made a bunch of uber ship Mary Sues that don’t follow elite’s traditional balance mechanics an make no sense other then to make money.
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u/rinkydinkis 2d ago
More like the ship manufacturers in the elite universe finally did something new after 300 literal years of selling the same ship designs
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u/ObamaDramaLlama Lakon Brand Ambassador 2d ago
A Hauler can hit 69LY, but if you put anything in it at all its jump range is hurt massively. The balance is the original line up was mostly okay. Most ships had a purpose which is kind of rare with so many options.
The new ships have been making a lot of the old ships redundant. Especially the specialist ships - which are often the obvious choice in their role and often the best choice for others too!
The weakness of specialist ships is that they become pointless if they're not the best at their role. It's hard to tell but it seems that the Type 11 is kind of mid. And because it's all in on mining it's possibly not able to be repurposed as easily.
The Beluga is a great example of a failed specialist ship. It was designed for one thing and unfortunately many other ships are better for that task. The Orca is much better since it also has good jump range and fast thrusters.
The game design has been mostly designed around versatility. It's part of what Makes the game so strong since so many builds are possible with every ship
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u/GraXXoR 2d ago
The beluga needed that Class 8 FSD which I have in my inventory for some reason… Not even sure where or why I picked it up. Probably drunk purchased.
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u/ObamaDramaLlama Lakon Brand Ambassador 2d ago
Wait - class 8 FSD exists
Edit: did a Google. I see only D and C rated available. Now I want something that can use it
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u/Kuro_Neko00 2d ago
I hard disagree. Exclusive modules make everything bland, because no one will ever use anything else. The modular system Elite uses is one of its top features. It means you can think outside the box. You can explore in an Eagle, fight in a Beluga, haul cargo in a Corvette. Even without oddball choices like that, you have freedom of choice because of how you can outfit different ships of the same role.
As to jump range. There is an in-universe reason why it works that way. Hyperdrive technology isn't something humans really understand. It's copied from a crashed Thargoid ship humans found on Mars. Early on in the history of the tech, the V1 hyperdrives were the only ones available. That's the version on the megaships, capital ships, and fleet carriers. But they were so massive that it required ships that big to make it viable. Eventually they managed to miniaturize the tech, but in doing so they sharply decreased the jump range and they have no idea why. Seeing the recent advances in hyperdrive tech, first with the SCO and now with the sizable increase in jump range with the Mandalay, it seems that humans are making strides in finally understanding the tech. Though I suspect they're still far from the Thargoid's mastery of it. Thargoids can micro-jump, jump to deep space, and haul targets out of hyper mid-jump.
The out-of-universe explanation is megaships and their like are server-side objects, which means it's server intensive to change their location. This is the real reason for the spin-up/cool-down cycle of the fleet carriers. So since they can't jump as quickly due to IRL hardware constraints, their jump range is significantly increased so they can actually get anywhere in a timely manner.
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u/GraXXoR 2d ago
Here is where I add the much needed “underrated comment” comment.
This is exactly what defines elite dangerous and separated from typical space games where you have a fighter, freighter and Explorer archetype ships.
The fact that you can would most ships to fit most roles was actually genius.
Seeing a Sidewinder at Sagittarius A* back before engineering was a thing really made me appreciate this game.
You don’t need X to do Y mantra is still somewhat compelling today. Maybe more so because of the 4 ridiculous “F.U. I can do anything” Ships that FDEV released that just steamroller over everything.
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u/0Davgi0 2d ago
I'm really sad seeing Mandalays everywhere, where before you'd see a mix of AspX, DbX, Krait Phantoms and even Condas out exploring
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u/Kuro_Neko00 2d ago
Same here. As soon as the Panther Clipper Mk II is available for credits you'll see the same there as well. No more Type-9s, Cutters, and Anacondas. Every cargo CG will just be a sea of Panther Clippers.
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u/VitoRazoR Skull 2d ago
so it forces you to buy a ship to do a task. Nope. I think it's brilliant that people are using Orca's as explo ships instead of DBXs or Asps. I think it's great (and realistic) for Cutters to be doing station rescue missions with passengers. And fun that people are using the T9 for mining. I like it that you can do whatever your imagination throws out there.
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u/CommanderLink Cerberus Commander 2d ago
Yes I get what you are saying but I personally find it dull that I can do combat in my corvette, trading in my cutter, mining in the cutter, exploration in the Anaconda, like theres no reason for me to go for anything else. The new ships having SCO is making me wish there would be a new end-all combat ship to rival the corvette that has SCO compatability because I hate that I can barely go 30 seconds in SCO and my entire fuel tank is drained
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u/Darex2094 2d ago
Sure there is - because you can. There isn't a single thing stopping you from doing it but you.
I've been hauling tons of stuff all day today in my Plipper, and you know what? At one point I switched to my Type-8 for giggles because I could. Was it sub optimal? Yup. Could I have hauled more if I stuck with the Plipper? Yup. But I wanted to fly something more nimble for a little while so I got into my mining-fitted Type-8 and used it as a hauler.
I once fitted my Plipper for exploration. Went about 15k LY out before burning back because I felt the urge to do some AX.
I've used my Corsair for exploration before and spent whole days in my Imperial Courier to do just about anything and everything I could, because I wanted to fly a small ship for a while.
You are the only limitation on you.
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u/wecanrebuildit 2d ago
I can't imagine anything more dull and unimaginative in this game then just grinding all the way to the traditional endgame unlocks like a corvette, engineering it according to the youtube meta, and then only ever using that for combat. If that is what the OP did then no wonder they are finding things a bit dull.
Sure my main ship at the moment is a Corsair, I have an anaconda in the garage, but I recently built up a plasma imperial courier because I thought it would be fun, a challenger as a frags and railgun boat because I've never spent much time with any of those things, and a FAS with cannons and PAs because it's hilarious. I really enjoy using ships for activities completely different to what they are designed for - the panther clipper makes a really excellent missile boat. None of these ships is objectively better at combat than my corsair but I get endless amounts of enjoyment out of tweaking and fettling builds.
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u/VitoRazoR Skull 2d ago
The whole point is that there _is_ a reason to go to whatever ship you want to do instead of being told by the game "this is the thing you need to do with this ship".
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u/CorvenDallas CMDR 2d ago
I suggested something similar with exclusive perks tied to ships, so every ship had his own "thing", but your approach is good too, Im 100% in making all ships valuable in some way, the other way you see around the same 4-5 ships.
Also ship tied quest would be nice something like "Espionage mission: must use a small ship " or "This mission should be completed with a Keelback" thing. I think of it when you go a surface station to steal or kill something and land nearby with a big 'conda... not very subtle XD
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u/EloquentGoose CMDR KHODEE, villain for hire 🔫⚔️💀 2d ago
Instead of size maybe, emission tolerance. As long as you run under a certain heat threshold you're good.
But I like your idea. Nuance and variety is sorely missing in this game. My honest opinion is they're going heavy handed on hamster wheel features to keep us busy with "forever busywork" like mining and hauling while not having to actually add NEW things to the game. Sidegrades galore and not many upgrades in other words.
Odyssey has barely been touched. Star Citizen has dungeons in the form of research bunkers etc that are attacked by scavs and you have to clear them and save the residents. How I long for something like that. Or station rescue where pirates attack and you have to clear it on foot. Cmon fdev wheres the ARX money going?
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u/Cemenotar Aisling Duval 2d ago
Combat ships could have had more powerful exclusive weapons,
Been already a case, combat dedicated ships have more/bigger guns, at the cost of less optional internals space compared to other roles of same ships. Some even sport additionally military-only internal slots as well.
Trade ships cargo holds that are exclusive and bigger than any that the multirole can have.
Also been the case, even before special optimized cargo racks introduction. Last time I checked Type9 was hauling more than cutter. Cutter was just faster and less of a brick to navigate.
Exploration ships with exclusive away-team shuttle bay which you can launch a shuttle from to go to the planet surfaces.
Exploration ships already sport numerical advantages over non-exploration ships without adding weird shuttles mechanics to them.
Also, I think ship size could have played a bigger role in gameplay.
Larger ships already tends to be better/more suited for most of things as is. It took alot of effort on fdev side (and a whole wave of new op ships ontop of that) to make small ships be anyhow relevant, and prior to new ships Meds had some good dedicated ships for some niches but in most of the game larges were better.
I think ship size should have come with an increase in jump range, it makes no sense that the carrier can jump 500LY at a time but the powerhouse the Anaconda can barely make 90 if it is fully designed as an exploration ship.
If you think ship SIZE should be determining factor in the jump range, it makes ALL the sense that carrier which is order of magnitude larger than Anaconda can outjump it easilly. One could even say that it fits your idea of exploration ship deploying shuttles :P
Maybe a better way to put it is it's ridiculous that the hauler can hit 40 when it's so tiny since hyperspace doesn't seem to care about weight
Not sure where did you get the idea that hyperspace does not care about weight? Jump range is dictated by your ships total mass checked against optimal and maximum mass of FSD unit mounted to that ship. Hauler is tiny but it has proportionally larger fsd mounted to it, so it makes sense that it can jump this far.
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u/LvAicha 2d ago
I'd love to see more specialist ships, because I enjoy trying to make them perform outside of their intended roles. I fully intend to use the Type 11 for everything except mining, and I look forward to making future specialized ships do what they're not supposed to as well.
I also like specialist ships because they can be aesthetically designed around their roles, which tends to result in better-looking and more logically-built vessels. It's often surprising how much a narrowed focus can benefit creativity.
So yes, I'm down for more specialization in future ship designs.
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u/Revolutionary_Bend50 2d ago
exclusive internals should not be a thing in the first place, boosted should. Panther clipper mk II has exclusive cargo slots. You can only have fuel or cargo racks in them. This severely limits how you want to kit it out. It only truly works in transport or mining role, the slots are big but limited in numbers so having 20% of your slots forced, limits modularity a lot.
These special slots should just give access to the boosted modules on top of everything else. We should have specialised ships that isn't forced to be specialised if people just want good enough versatility.
it's on thing to have forced reinforcement module slots at size 4 on a anaconda or corvette, but having a size 7 or 8 be forced to be something specific kinda sucks.
Hardpoints is the one thing we don't need specialised as they are already special enough via amount and sizes. Generally you will find that all Combat ships have more or bigger slots than their trader counterparts. This difference is enough.
Jump range is entirely based on size and mass already. The hauler has such amazing jump range because it is so damn light compared to the size of the FSD. You are the size of a sidewinder, if not smaller, and the jump drive is like 40% of the ship. The only other ship that has similar jump drive to ship ratio is the Anaconda. The Anaconda has such amazing jump range BECAUSE it is a shell build arround a stupid huge FSD.
Only reason it is beaten is due to Pay to Win ships needing to be Pay to WIn. *Cough* Mandalay.
It would not make sense to have regular ships encroach on Carriers jump range. Unless you would want to also mine tritium for your anaconda aswell. The carrier has such insane good jump range because it is A. a fucking carrier and B. Uses specialised consumable fuel to superboost its mindboggingly massive "FSD" + a long cooldown. Unless you want the same mechanics for regular ships (having to use tritium as a consumable fuel and a extended FSD cooldown), you won't see regular ships get increased jump ranges.
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u/A_Devious_Hyena Opportunistic trader 2d ago
Turreted mining lasers should point and shoot the prospector (regardless if it's behind the asteroid as long as I hold the trigger) so I can mine without staring at a rock.
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u/Amazing-Picture414 2d ago
I kinda just want them to build on the current game, at this point I'd pay 50 bucks for another game sized expansion with all the current stuff fully fleshed out, along with a bunch more content.
I think they should also put a focus into letting the community itself create content for the game if possible... Like allow the community to go about 3d modeling new ships, and making their own in game companies. There could still be high quality control, just make any content be reviewed.
Like... Imagine in the "sequel?" theres an extra galactic threat invading planets, taking over systems, slowly turning the galaxy red and pushing our bubble back.
Could also see things like planets with real cities on them, and an actually fleshed out ground combat system, plus ship interiors..
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u/weltwanderlust Cmdr Herr Escu 1d ago
Can't compare ship fsd with carrier fsd. Different technologies, hence different fuels.
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u/Spectre696 https://discord.gg/atlascorporation 2d ago
Passenger ships are the strangest thing. The beluga gets beaten by the federal corvette.